The Obama administration is withholding from congressional leaders documents and information related to a $1.7 billion U.S. taxpayer funded payout to Iran earlier this year, furthering accusations the cash was part of a “ransom payment” to free U.S. hostages from Iranian custody, according to communications obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and conversations with lawmakers.

The controversy over this payment – which arose from the settlement of a longstanding legal dispute with Iran – has deepened in recent weeks after Iranian officials disclosed that nearly all of the U.S. money had been spent to strengthen Iran’s military.

Congressional efforts to compel the Obama administration to come clean about the payment have yet to yield results, prompting a separate effort to determine whether the White House overpaid Iran and is now withholding information that would prove this claim, according to documents obtained by the Free Beacon.

Lawmakers suspect that key records relating to the $1.7 billion payout were not properly maintained over the years and are now seeking to force the Obama administration to hand over the evidence.

The timing of the March legal settlement has raised questions on Capitol Hill among lawmakers who view it as part of the Obama administration’s effort to free 10 U.S. sailors who had been abducted by Iran. It also is suspected that the payout was another byproduct of last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

“Earlier this year, the administration announced a $1.7 billion settlement to a case that had been pending for 35 years before the [International Claims] Tribunal, claiming it was in the American public’s best interest to settle,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.), one of the lawmakers spearheading the disclosure effort, told the Free Beacon…

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Attorney General Loretta Lynch will announce Friday that she will accept the FBI recommendations on the Hillary Clinton email investigation. This comes after she met with Bill Clinton earlier this week for a half-hour meeting in Arizona.

Her boss President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton and will campaign with her next week.

The New York Times reported:

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch plans to announce on Friday that she will accept whatever recommendation career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director make about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, a Justice Department official said. Her decision removes the possibility that a political appointee will overrule investigators in the case…

The German Chancellor’s approval ratings have plummeted in the countries hit hardest by Brussels’ chaotic economic policies and the spiralling migrant crisis.

She is now viewed with “no confidence” by huge swathes of the European population at a time when the EU is facing potential oblivion in the aftermath of the Brexit vote.

The results show a growing backlash against Germany from the rest of a bloc that feels Mrs Merkel has trashed their economies and unleashed huge levels of migration for her own country’s gain.

And the survey was carried out before Britain voted to leave the EU, with it likely that her approval ratings have sunk even lower still since the historic June 23 referendum.

Many southern European nations have suffered terrible hardship and depression following the imposition of the euro, which has fuelled an economic boom in Germany by driving down the cost of its exports.

Meanwhile many Balkan and eastern European countries blame Mrs Merkel for unleashing chaotic mass migration on their borders following her infamous welcome for the whole of the Middle East to settle in Germany.

The new poll, by the respected US Pew Research Center, shows that the German leader’s approval ratings are unsurprisingly lowest in Greece, which has been forced into abject austerity and poverty by Berlin…

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Late Wednesday, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, who teamed up to win the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, had their arms around each other, celebrating their victory at a Conservative Party fundraiser at the Hurlingham Club, a members-only hangout in West London.

Mr. Johnson, London’s former mayor, was hours away from formally entering the race to become the country’s next prime minister, with Mr. Gove, the current justice secretary, as his co-chair.

But the next morning – in a tumultuous turnabout – it was Mr. Gove who threw his hat in the ring, blindsiding Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Gove, who had long insisted he didn’t want, and wasn’t equipped for, the job, said he felt he had no choice. He said he had lost confidence in Mr. Johnson’s ability to form a team to lead the U.K. through its separation from the EU…

Justice: IRS official Lois Lerner didn’t merely target conservative groups to take away their tax-free status, as first suspected, but also handed over more than a million pages of tax returns to the Justice Department. That’s a crime.

It’s now apparent, if it wasn’t before, that the Internal Revenue Service – which was created solely to collect revenues due the government, not to persecute the administration’s political enemies – has become a kind of rogue agency.

Its chief, John Koskinen, is being threatened with impeachment for not telling the truth in testimony before Congress. But Lerner, more than even Koskinen, has become a symbol of IRS arrogance and illegality.

As Eliana Johnson of the National Review reported this week, Lerner transmitted some 1.25 million pages of tax returns of mostly Tea Party and conservative groups to the Justice Department in October 2010. In Johnson’s words, this was “likely the largest unauthorized disclosure of tax-return information in history.”

For some perspective, this took place at the start of a three-year period during which the same groups found their applications for tax-free status inexplicably held up, while those for liberal groups were more or less routinely rubber-stamped.

But the actual transmission of their tax returns as part of a fishing expedition by Lerner is the big problem here – because she also transmitted IRS Schedule B data, which includes the names and addresses of contributors to those conservative groups. That’s a big no-no…

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While Attorney General Loretta Lynch holds firm to her claim that the motive of Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen may never be known, the FBI is instructing Florida agencies that responded to the attack that night to deny requests for public records pertaining to the case.

Mateen called police several times during the three hour ordeal to declare his allegiance to ISIS, yet only a fraction of his discussions with authorities that night have been released to the public – first an edited version, than an unedited one.

In response to a lawsuit by local media seeking the release of the 911 audio, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office released a letter they got from the FBI instructing them to deny all requests for information and refer news outlets seeking information to the feds, the Orlando Sentinel reports…

On the evening of 13 November 2015, ISIS linked terrorists slaughtered 130 people in a series of coordinated attacks in Paris.

The Islamists murdered 89 concertgoers at the Bataclan during a concert by the Eagles of Death Metal.

ISIS later released a poster of the Paris killers.

One of the guns used in the November 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks was from Phoenix where Obama allowed criminals and cartel members to buy thousands of guns in his Fast and Furious gun-walking program.

Judicial Watch reported:

One of the guns used in the November 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks came from Phoenix, Arizona where the Obama administration allowed criminals to buy thousands of weapons illegally in a deadly and futile “gun-walking” operation known as “Fast and Furious.”.

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations – for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic – but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual…

McConnell lauded Clinton as “intelligent and capable” while casting Trump as not yet credible. He told Time Warner Cable (TWC) News that Trump is “getting closer,” but that he “clearly needs to change.”

Trump meanwhile remained focused on calling out Clinton over failures from her time as Secretary of State, tweeting Wednesday:

ISIS exploded on Hillary Clinton’s watch – she’s done nothing about it and never will. Not capable!..

Kansas, Alabama and Georgia can demand their residents submit proof of citizenship before signing up to vote even if they’re using the federal government’s registration forms, a judge said Wednesday, delivering a win to states concerned about voter fraud.

The League of Women Voters and the Obama administration had tried to halt the practice, arguing that federal law doesn’t require an extensive citizenship check when people register to vote, and saying the three states were imposing an extra burden on voters.

But Judge Richard J. Leon said that while it may be an inconvenience to require proof of citizenship, and voter registration drives may have to do more work to get folks signed up, it’s not an insurmountable burden – and certainly less so than trying to explain Obamacare.

“The organizational plaintiffs and their members will undoubtedly have to expend some additional time and effort to help individuals,” Judge Leon wrote. “But let’s be candid: doing so pales in comparison to explaining to the average citizen how the [Affordable Care Act] or tax code works!”

Since the voter groups didn’t show a real and irreparable harm, he rejected their request for a preliminary injunction.

The ruling is the latest in a years-long struggle by some states to combat potential voter fraud by insisting voters prove they are citizens. In one Kansas count alone, officials count 25 instances of non-citizens attempting to register to vote.

“This is a very real problem and the only way to solve the problem is to require proof of citizenship on the front end,” said Kris W. Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state…

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A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the State Department to produce the e-mail records of Hillary Clinton’s scheduler during her tenure as secretary of state, expanding an investigation being pursued by conservative nonprofit Citizens United into the overlap between Clinton’s official travel and her meetings with foreign Clinton Foundation donors.

Citizens United is slated to receive all e-mails sent to and from Lona Valmoro, Clinton’s State Department scheduler, in the two-week periods before each of 14 international trips Clinton took during her four years in office. David Bossie, president of Citizens United, hopes to confirm suspicions that Clinton maintained an off-the-books schedule, meeting with Clinton Foundation donors on the taxpayer’s dime. “Citizens United wants to know how many overseas dinners Secretary Clinton attended with Clinton Foundation donors that didn’t make it on her schedule,” he says.

Judge Rosemary Collyer, the federal judge presiding over a public-records case brought by Citizens United, was initially hesitant to allow the release of Valmoro’s e-mails, and asked the group to provide one example of an off-the-books meeting with Clinton Foundation donors…

YouTuber Calum McSwiggan claimed to have been “beaten up” after he left a gay club in West Hollywood, but according to reports, officials have since rubbished his story.

Posting to his Instagram account, the 26-year-old vlogger – who runs a LGBT and lifestyle channel – shared a picture of his injuries as he recovered in a hospital bed after an alleged attack at a nightclub on Sunday night.

“After one of the most wonderful weekends at VidCon we went out to a gay club to celebrate, and towards the end of the evening I was separated from my friends and beaten up by three guys,” explained the caption.

But in a statement to The Advocate , Captain Holly Perez, from the West Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, explained that officers had been “unable to substantiate the assault” and that the pictured injuries were self-inflicted inside his police cell.

The police statement explained that authorities found him with “no visible injuries” after the alleged attack and were forced to arrest him after they “observed him vandalising a car”.

It went on to describe how the YouTuber was booked and placed in a cell where he was “then observed injuring himself with the handle and receiver to a payphone inside the cell.”

It comes after Calum took to Instagram on Monday to reveal his injuries, which he used as purported evidence of the alleged attack…

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Finally making good on long-harbored anger at conservative media, Democrats on the Federal Election Commission voted in secret to punish Fox News’ sponsorship of a Republican presidential debate, using an obscure law to charge the network with helping those on stage.

It is the first time in history that members of the FEC voted to punish a media outlet’s debate sponsorship, and it follows several years of Democratic threats against conservative media and websites like the Drudge Report.

The punishment, however, was blocked by all three Republicans on the commission, resulting in a 3-3 tie vote and no action. The vote was posted Thursday and is here.

A Republican FEC commissioner leading that fight, Lee E. Goodman, revealed the vote to Secrets Wednesday and said the official report of the May 26 executive vote will be released Thursday. It is here…

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The Romanian hacker who claimed he easily breached Hillary Clinton’s email server pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to two counts of computer hacking charges, as part of a deal with the Justice Department.

In exchange for a reduced sentence, Marcel Lehel Lazar – also known as Guccifer – has agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the future.

Lazar pleaded guilty to the unauthorized access of a protected computer and aggravated identity theft, counts tied to his illegal intrusion into systems belonging to former U.S. government officials, including former Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal and former Secretary of State Colin Powell…

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The Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it wrongly declared more than 4,000 veterans dead over the past five years, cutting off benefits for them and their dependents.

The agency disclosed that it wrongly terminated benefits for 4,201 veterans between 2011 and 2015 in a letter to Rep. David Jolly (R., Fla.) this month. The admission came more than six months after Jolly initially requested information on veterans whose VA benefits had been erroneously cut off following a series of mistaken death cases by the VA in the Tampa Bay area.

More than 1,000 veterans had their benefits disrupted in 2015 alone when the VA erroneously declared them deceased…

The State Department admitted 80 Syrian refugees on Tuesday and 225 on Monday, setting a single-day record, as President Obama tries to meet his target of 10,000 approvals this year – renewing fears among security analysts who say the administration is cutting corners to meet a political goal.

Officials insist they are moving faster because of improvements in screening and say they are still running all the traps on applicants.

But the spike is stunning, with more people accepted Monday alone than in the entire months of January or February.

“The Obama administration is on full throttle to admit as many people as possible before the time clock runs out on them,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “This is the classic scenario when political expediency trumps prudence, and someone slips through who shouldn’t have, and tragedy ensues.”

Powerless to stop the civil war in Syria, Mr. Obama has instead offered the U.S. as a haven for some of those fleeing the conflict.

He promised to accept 10,000 refugees from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. As of Tuesday evening, the administration had approved 2,540 – an average of about 10 applications a day…

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In one of the presidential campaign year’s more grisly spectacles, demonstrators at a Donald Trump rally in New Mexico threw burning T-shirts, plastic bottles and other items at police officers, injuring several, and toppled trash cans and barricades. Authorities labeled it a “riot.”

The leadership PAC of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) has paid out nearly $100,000 more in salaries than it has given to Democratic candidates during the 2016 election cycle, a review of Federal Election Commission records shows.

The Democrats Win Seats PAC, or DWS PAC, has a stated mission of directing “resources to help elect Democrats around the country.” However, records show the PAC has spent more on staff than helping campaigns.

Between Jan. 1, 2015 and April 30, 2016, the PAC paid $153,453 to Lindsey Schulte, the committee’s highest-paid employee, according to a review of the DWS PAC’s finances.

Jason O’Malley, the second highest-paid employee at the PAC, collected $69,112 in salary and an additional $20,000 for “fundraising consulting fees.”

Meredith Swan made $37,463 and Anna Stolitzka made $3,164 since January 2015, bringing the PAC’s payroll to $283,282.

The DWS PAC contributed just $186,000 to the committees of Democratic politicians, with the largest donation of $15,000 going to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The PAC disbursed $97,282 less to candidates than it paid to the people running the committee.

The four individuals collecting paychecks from Wasserman Schultz’s leadership PAC were simultaneously being paid by her official campaign…

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The state of New Jersey told an Army officer dealing with terror threats at Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton that there is no “justifiable need” for him to have a concealed carry permit.

Lt. Col. Terry S. Russell, the product manager for the Army’s Individual Weapons and Small Arms program, requires a Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance for his job. The base where he works was chosen as a terrorist “dry run” for a a Vehicle Borne Improved Explosive Device, and hackers have tried to obtain information on personnel.

The list of demands from social justice college students around the country is growing daily. Most of them demand bully-proof safe spaces just to escape from any and all perceived oppression. Now, some at Oberlin College are asking for a bit more from administration: throw out all grades below ‘C’ and convert written exams to conversations.

With having to juggle protests, general activism, and avoiding contrary ideas written in chalk, these students are finding little time left to study and need someone to throw them a lifeline, and fast. What’s worse, as Reason points out, the stress, mental anguish, and living in a “toxic” atmosphere, is leading many students to drop out altogether.

The latest in desperate pleas on campus were discovered in a piece for The New Yorker that introduced several student activists at Oberlin who are asking the impossible.

One of them is Megan Bautista, a self-described “Afro-Latinx.” She expressed frustration at having to drive back and forth to attend the protests for cop shooting victim Tamir Rice forty minutes away and keep up school work back in 2014.

“A lot of us started suffering academically,” Bautista noted.

She had hoped that Oberline would see the needs of the Black Lives Matter movement and once again follow its previous grade modifications offered during the Vietnam War protests and the Kent State shooting in 1970. She signed her name along with over 1,300 other students to a petition asking for the elimination of average grades and below. However, the administration didn’t oblige…

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French investigators have raided Google’s Paris headquarters, saying the company is now under investigation for aggravated financial fraud and organised money laundering.

In a major escalation of France’s long-running enquiry into Google’s tax affairs, magistrates revealed on Tuesday that the software giant is suspected of evading taxes by failing to declare the full extent of its activities in the country.

Prosecutors said they want to establish whether the Irish company through which Google funnels the majority of its European revenues does in fact control a “permanent establishment” in France…

For more than four years, Maryland dairy farmer Randy Sowers has been fighting the federal government, asking it to right what many say was a wrong.

In Feb. 2012, two federal agents told Sowers, who owns South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, Md. that the Internal Revenue Service was seizing more than $60,000 from his farm’s bank account under a subset of civil forfeiture laws governing cash transactions.

According to the IRS, Sowers had committed structuring violations. Structuring is the act of making consistent cash deposits or withdrawals of under $10,000 to avoid government reporting requirements.

But the dairy farmer didn’t know he was doing anything wrong, and because Sowers and his wife sold milk at local farmer’s markets – where customers paid primarily in cash – they frequently made cash deposits into the business’s bank account.

Sowers and his wife tried to fight to the government to get their money back, but ultimately decided to settle.

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Milo Yiannopoulos’ event at DePaul University had to be cut short Tuesday night after protesters stormed the stage, blew whistles, grabbed the microphone out of the interviewer’s hand, and threatened to punch Yiannopoulos in the face.

Yiannopoulos attempted to continue the event, but protesters refused to leave the stage and the group of security guards (which DePaul forced both the organisers and Breitbart to pay for) refused to intervene.

The male ringleader continued to pace along the stage with his whistle, refusing to let Yiannopoulos speak for extended amounts of time, while the female ringleader forcibly snatched the microphone from the interviewer’s hand and shouted at Yiannopoulos just inches away from his face…

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has become the latest Donald Trump rival to take a clenched-fist approach to the delegates he won during the primary season, moving this week to keep those delegates as bargaining chips going into the party’s July nominating convention.

A former top aide to the Kasich presidential campaign confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that he is instructing his delegates to stay bound to him through the convention.

Kasich joins Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in keeping delegates on lockdown despite suspending his presidential primary campaign weeks ago. Though Trump is expected to formally clinch the nomination during the final June 7 primaries, his ex-rivals are thought to be holding onto delegates as a means of leverage.

Kasich thinks that holding onto them will force or at least persuade Trump to run a more positive general election campaign and try harder to unify the party, a Kasich aide told The Washington Post, which first reported the story.

According to The Washington Post, Kasich on Monday told party officials that the 161 delegates he won in state primaries and caucuses should keep their allegiance to him through the Cleveland convention…

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It’s only May, but I think I’ve found the euphemism of the year: According to Team Obama, criminals should now be declared “justice-involved individuals.”

The neo-Orwellianism comes to us from the bizarre flurry of last-minute diktats, regulations and bone-chilling threats collectively known to fanboys as Obama’s Gorgeous Goodbye.

In another of those smiley-faced, but deeply sinister, “Dear Colleague” letters sent to universities and college this week, Obama’s Education Secretary John King discouraged colleges from asking applicants whether they were convicted criminals.

An accompanying pamphlet was called “Beyond the Box: Increasing Access to Higher Education for Justice-Involved Individuals.”…

The new Muslim mayor of London has issued a warning to Donald Trump: Moderate your stance on Muslims, or they will launch more attacks against America.

Trump recently praised Sadiq Khan for winning London’s mayoral race, and said he would be willing to create an exception in his policy restricting Muslim entry into the United States in order to allow Khan to visit. But in a statement Tuesday, Khan dismissed Trump’s invitation, and also denounced his views on Islam as “ignorant,” suggesting Trump’s policies would increase the terrorist threat in both the U.S. and U.K.

“Donald Trump’s ignorant view of Islam could make both of our countries less safe – it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays into the hands of extremists,” he said. “Donald Trump and those around him think that Western liberal values are incompatible with mainstream Islam – London has proved him wrong.”

While Khan touted the liberal values of British Muslims, some polls have found worrying indicators that their assimilation is incomplete. A poll in April, for instance, found that two-thirds of British Muslims would not tell the government if a friend or family member became involved with extremists. Half of them said homosexuality should be illegal and over 20 percent supported establishing sharia in the U.K…

It was just a few years ago, in March 2011, when a pair of U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers – during a harsh winter storm – took off from their base in South Dakota to fly across the world to launch the air campaign in Libya, only 16 hours after given the order.

Today, many in the Air Force are questioning whether a similar mission could still be accomplished, after years of budget cuts that have taken an undeniable toll. The U.S. Air Force is now short 4,000 airmen to maintain its fleet, short 700 pilots to fly them and short vital spare parts necessary to keep their jets in the air. The shortage is so dire that some have even been forced to scrounge for parts in a remote desert scrapheap known as “The Boneyard.”

“It’s not only the personnel that are tired, it’s the aircraft that are tired as well,” Master Sgt. Bruce Pfrommer, who has over two decades of experience in the Air Force working on B-1 bombers, told Fox News.

Fox News visited two U.S. Air Force bases – including South Dakota’s Ellsworth Air Force Base located 35 miles from Mount Rushmore, where Pfrommer is stationed – to see the resource problems first-hand, following an investigation into the state of U.S. Marine Corps aviation last month…

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IRS Commissioner John Koskinen may be facing impeachment after the House Judiciary Committee announced Friday that it will be holding hearings in the next few weeks concerning his alleged misconduct.

When it was discovered in 2013 that under Lois Lerner, the IRS’ Exempt Organizations Unit had allegedly been targeting conservative groups as they applied for tax-exempt status, John Koskinen was appointed as the spokesman for the agency.

However, according to Fox News, Koskinen is accused of allowing thousands of emails and backup tapes to be deleted after a subpoena was issued ordering him to preserve those records…

THIS is what’s happening across America with Obama’s “dreamers” aka teen illegals who come to America and do whatever the hell they want to. Yes, it’s happening and is mostly being done by one of the thousands of MS-13 gang members who’re brutal heartless criminals. The media wants you to have sympathy for the young kids and teens who’re crossing our border but in reality many of these teens are criminals. The number of MS-13 gang members in America has exploded of the past few years. You can thank Obama and his open borders buddies for animals like the three who brutally raped a Long Island teen.

A teenage gang member was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday for raping a teenage girl on a Long Island golf course last year.

Joel Escobar, 18, was the second teen to be sentenced in what Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota called the ‘brutal’ robbery, rape and sodomy of a 16-year-old girl on May 29, 2015.

Spota said Escobar and Jose Cornejo, 17, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in the same case, took turns raping the girl while a third teen, Bryan Larios, allegedly acted as a lookout.

Larios is awaiting trial, Spota said in a press release.

Spota said the mother of the victim spoke in court prior to the sentencing…

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The three black University of Albany students who alleged that they were victims of a race-based hate crime on a public bus back in January have now been officially indicted themselves.

Alexis Briggs, Asha Burwell and Ariel Agudio, all 22 years old, face a litany of charges including assault, harassment and falsely reporting a criminal incident, reports the Albany Times Union.

The bus brawl occurred in the wee hours of Saturday, Jan. 30. Briggs, Burwell and Agudio swore they were victims of a hate-fueled mob assault on the bus. The trio claimed they began arguing with a group of 10 to 12 white men and women, who were also SUNY Albany students…

The number of families and unaccompanied children apprehended on the southern border has skyrocketed this year, according to new figures from the Obama administration.

The numbers, compiled by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), reveal that child migration is on par with 2014 levels, when a wave of kids – thousands of them unaccompanied – arrived at the southern border.

The surge of illegal immigration quickly swamped border authorities, immigration courts and health and humanitarian workers, while sparking a political battle on Capitol Hill over the cause and proper response to the crisis.

The new figures raise the specter of another increase this summer. That would almost certainly inflame another political showdown in a volatile presidential year in which the issues of race, immigration and border security have been pronounced – particularly due to the hard-line enforcement approach adopted by the presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump…

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If in the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king, then columnist David Brooks of the New York Times is blind, deaf and dumb inside the Beltway.

In an election year where all the experts have been exactly wrong about absolutely everything, it really is something of a feat to be as spectacularly and enthusiastically wrong as Mr. Brooks.

This probably should not come as much of a surprise, given how highly revered the pundit-scribe is inside the Beltway. He serves as some kind of “Republican voice” for the New York Times and offers up nerdy commentary for “News Hour” on National People’s Television…

The situation in Venezuela has become so bad that even soldiers are struggling to support themselves.

Over the weekend, six members of the Venezuelan military were detained by local authorities for stealing goats, the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported Sunday. It said the soldiers confessed to stealing the goats and said they did it to feed themselves, since they had no food left in their barracks.

“It’s not a good sign when your military doesn’t have enough food, and when the military has been relegated to guarding and protecting food lines,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “This is endemic of the problems going on across the country.”

Venezuela has been hard hit by food shortages, a dizzying inflation rate of about 181 percent and a collapse in the price of oil – its most critical export…

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The infamous Romanian hacker known as “Guccifer,” speaking exclusively with Fox News, claimed he easily – and repeatedly – breached former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email server in early 2013.

“For me, it was easy… easy for me, for everybody,” Marcel Lehel Lazar, who goes by the moniker “Guccifer,” told Fox News from a Virginia jail where he is being held.

Guccifer’s potential role in the Clinton email investigation was first reported by Fox News last month…

An official with the Department of Justice said the agency will no longer call people “felons” or “convicts” after they are released from prison because it is too hard on them emotionally.

Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason wrote a piece in The Washington Post Wednesday saying “many of the formerly incarcerated men, women, and young people I talk with say that no punishment is harsher than being permanently branded a ‘felon’ or ‘offender.’”

Mason said the decision is not to condone their behavior, but to use words to help them reenter society.

“In my role as head of the division of the Justice Department that funds and supports hundreds of reentry programs throughout the country, I have come to believe that we have a responsibility to reduce not only the physical but also the psychological barriers to reintegration.”…

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There’s no question that Wisconsin’s landmark Act 10 made it a lot less expensive for local public schools to operate.

By eliminating most labor union collective bargaining in schools, K-12 officials found the freedom to adjust their budgets according to their districts’ needs and resources.

But the benefits of Act 10 go beyond dollars and cents, which is the theme of a new report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), titled “Untold Stories of Act 10: How Superintendents Have Used Act 10 to Reform Public Schools.”…

German Minister of Justice Heiko Maas has stood with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, warning that citizens who don’t want a flood of violent Muslim refugees will be arrested for “hate speech.” However, as soon as he stepped away from his heavily guarded podium, he realized that he had made a huge mistake.

Most leftists who call those opposing the mass import of asylum seekers “bigots” and “Islamophobes” do so from the comfort of their gated communities. Having taken in no migrants themselves, they hypocritically rely on the taxpayers to fund the burden of career welfare illegals. Fortunately, this has been enough to enrage patriots into reminding elected officials that they represent citizens, not illegal immigrants.

Overcome with a massive wave of rapists, violent criminals, and Sharia enforcers, righteously indignant Germans are rising up against the Islamic invasion, vowing to never let their country become another Nazi-style ethnic cleansing site like that of the Middle East…

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A U.S. biotech company has been given the green light to begin recruiting 20 brain-dead patients to test if parts of their central nervous systems can be regenerated – literally raising them from the dead.

The company, Bioquark Inc., plans to inject a cocktail of stem cells and peptides into the brains of the patients over a six-week period to see if it can jump-start their functions.

Philadelphia-based Bioquark asks on its website: “What if your body came with a restart button?”…

Italian police arrested four suspected Islamic State agents Thursday tasked with attacking Rome and the Vatican.

Police intercepted communications between ISIS and one of the four suspects, which ordered a series of attacks centered on Rome, according to Italian prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli. Potential targets included the Israeli embassy and Catholic pilgrims going to Rome to celebrate the Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis.

Italian police also issued warrants for a Moroccan man and his Italian wife who left Italy last year for ISIS territory and whose current whereabouts are unknown.

The arrests show that ISIS is continuing to plot major attacks in Western Europe using radicalized individuals already present there. Despite being a major transit point for migrants arriving from Africa, Italy has avoided suffering a major terrorist attack like those that hit Paris, Brussels, Madrid, and London in the years since 9/11…

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Mexico’s new ambassador to Washington plans to make a top priority helping Mexicans living in the U.S. to get citizenship to avoid deportation if they commit crimes.

At a press conference last week Ambassador Carlos Manuel Sada Solana said obtaining citizenship “is a very important protection mechanism” for Mexican citizens with legal residence in the U.S. because without citizenship they could still be deported for criminal acts.

“A lot of people think that just because they are legal residents they are not vulnerable to deportation and that’s not the case,” the ambassador said, in remarks later published on a government website…

The April 5, 2016 issue of The Gleaner, the student paper of Rutgers University-Camden, published a cartoon of Muhammad, Buddha and Jesus in a bar. Its content, however, cannot be known at this point, because at the behest of Muslims on campus, and in a case fraught with implications for the health of the freedom of speech today, the entire issue has been deep-sixed.

Two weeks after the cartoon was published, the April 19 issue of The Gleaner contained a letter from the Muslim Brotherhood campus group, the Muslim Students Association, saying that it found the image offensive and asking The Gleaner to remove the image from the April 5 issue and circulate a new edition of that issue without it. The MSA letter claims that Christians and Jews on campus told MSA members that they, too, found the image offensive.

The MSA letter states: “Even though freedom of speech and press is emphasized and is something all of us value as proud Americans, the University prides itself on diversity of people of different faith and backgrounds so we feel that it is necessary to respect those faiths and backgrounds by honoring their beliefs.”…

The news raises yet more questions about the embattled Belgian security forces’ ability to prevent acts of terror being plotted and carried out in jihadi hotbeds in the country.

Speaking this afternoon, Erdogan said that Belgian authorities released the suspect despite Turkish warnings that he was “a foreign fighter” who had been captured on the border with Syria.

Erdogan did not identify the individual but NTV television named him as Ibrahim El Bakraoui, one of the two men who blew themselves up at Brussels airport.

He added that Belgian authorities had failed to confirm the suspect’s links to terrorism “despite our warnings” following his deportation.

Erdogan went on to say Belgian consular authorities were formally notified of his deportation on July 14, 2015. He added that he was then released by the Belgian authorities.

“Despite our warnings that this person was a foreign terrorist fighter, the Belgian authorities could not identify a link to terrorism,” he said at a news conference alongside visiting Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

Erdogan said that the Netherlands were also implicated in the issue as the man had initially been deported to the Netherlands at his own request and the Dutch authorities informed.

He did not specify how he had been transferred from the Netherlands to Belgium where 31 people died in bomb attacks on Tuesday.

“I believe that we can work this out (the fight against terror) if world leaders form an alliance against terror. For that, we need to redefine global terror and terrorists,” Erdogan added.

Turkey has previously complained that Western countries did not heed warnings of the dangers posed by jihadists it had expelled back to Europe after arresting them on the Syrian border.

European officials have also urged Turkey to improve intelligence sharing and praised an increase in cooperation in recent months.

31 people were killed and 270 injured after a series of blasts in Zaventem airport, and an hour later a Metro station in Maalbeek.

One of the airport suicide bombers was named as Ibrahim El-Bakraoui, while his brother Khalid El-Brakraoui has been confirmed as the Metro attacker.

Both brothers were well known to police before the attacks, with Khalid even being hunted by Interpol.

But despite the international manhunt for the pair due to their links with last November’s Paris attacks, the pair appear to have been freely moving around Brussels.

There are also serious concerns over the ease with which Belgium-based jihadis have been able to escape despite huge manhunts.

Paris attacker Salah Abdesalem vanished during one police raid last before being captured.

And there appears to have been no trace of Najim Laachraoui since his suitcase nail failed to explode at Brussels airport yesterday morning.

The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum chaos, officials have told The Associated Press.

The network of agile and semiautonomous cells shows the reach of the extremist group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq.

The officials, including European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows the jihadi networks, described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly the former Soviet bloc where attackers are trained to target the West. Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed he had entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered “more or less everywhere.”

But the biggest break yet in the Paris attacks investigation – the arrest on Friday of fugitive Salah Abdeslam – did not thwart the multipronged attack just four days later on the Belgian capital’s airport and subway system that left 31 people dead and an estimated 270 wounded. Three suicide bombers also died.

Just as in Paris, Belgian authorities were searching for at least one fugitive in Tuesday’s attacks – this time for a man wearing a white jacket who was seen on airport security footage with the two suicide attackers. The fear is that the man, whose identity Belgian officials say is not known, will follow Abdeslam’s path.

After fleeing Paris immediately after the November attacks, Abdeslam forged a new network back in his childhood neighborhood of Molenbeek, long known as a haven for jihadis, and renewed plotting, according to Belgian officials.

“Not only did he drop out of sight, but he did so to organize another attack, with accomplices everywhere. With suicide belts. Two attacks organized just like in Paris. And his arrest, since they knew he was going to talk, it was a response: ‘So what if he was arrested? We’ll show you that it doesn’t change a thing,'” said French Senator Nathalie Goulet, co-head of a commission tracking jihadi networks.

Estimates range from 400 to 600 Islamic State fighters trained specifically for external attacks, according to the officials, including Goulet. Some 5,000 Europeans have gone to Syria.

“The reality is that if we knew exactly how many there were, it wouldn’t be happening,” she said.

More than four sources with access to tallies of fighters tasked with Europe attacks independently corroborated the numbers of fighters who trained for specific attacks in Europe, including some who have spoken to fighters directly. Others have cross checked information regarding fighters leaving or returning.

Two of the suicide bombers in Tuesday’s attacks, Belgian-born brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, were known to authorities as common criminals, not anti-Western radicals until an apartment one of them rented was traced to Abdeslam last week, according to Belgian state broadcaster RTBF. Similarly, an Algerian killed inside that apartment on March 15 had nothing but a petty theft record in Sweden – but he’d signed up as an Islamic State suicide bomber for the group in 2014 and returned to Europe as part of the Nov. 13 plot.

In claiming responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, the Islamic State group described a “secret cell of soldiers” dispatched to Brussels for the purpose. The shadowy cells were confirmed by the EU police agency, Europol, which said in a late January report that intelligence officials believed the group had “developed an external action command trained for special forces-style attacks.”

French speakers with links to North Africa, France and Belgium appear to be leading the units and are responsible for developing attack strategies in Europe, said a European security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss briefing material. He is also familiar with interrogations of former fighters who have returned to Europe. Some were jailed after leaving IS while others were kicked out of the terror group, and they include Muslims and Muslim converts from all across Europe.

Fighters in the units are trained in battleground strategies, explosives, surveillance techniques and counter surveillance, the security official said.

“The difference is that in 2014, some of these IS fighters were only being given a couple weeks of training,” he said. “Now the strategy has changed. Special units have been set up. The training is longer. And the objective appears to no longer be killing as many people as possible but rather to have as many terror operations as possible, so the enemy is forced to spend more money or more in manpower.”

Similar methods had been developed by al-Qaida but IS has taken it to a new level, he said. Another difference is that fighters are being trained to be their own operators – not necessarily to be beholden to orders from the IS stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, or elsewhere.

Several security officials have said there is growing evidence to suggest the bulk of the training is taking place in Syria, Libya and elsewhere in North Africa.

In the case of Tuesday’s attacks, Abdeslam’s arrest may have been a trigger for a plot that was already far along.

“To pull off an attack of this sophistication, you need training, planning, materials and a landscape,” said Shiraz Maher, a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings College in London, which has one of the largest databases of fighters and their networks.

“Even if they worked flat out, the attackers in Brussels would have needed at least four days,” said Maher, who has conducted extensive interviews with foreign fighters.

The question for many intelligence and security officials is now turning to just how many more fighters have been trained and are ready for more attacks.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official who was not authorized to speak publicly said people from the cell that carried out the Paris attacks are scattered across Germany, Britain, Italy, Denmark and Sweden. Recently, a new group crossed in from Turkey, the official said.

On Wednesday, Turkish authorities said one of the Brussels suicide attackers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, was caught last June near the Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands, with Ankara warning Dutch and Belgian officials that he was a “foreign terrorist fighter.” But he was released from Dutch custody due to lack of evidence of involvement in extremism.

Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens said Wednesday that authorities had no reason to detain El Bakraoui because he was “not known for terrorist acts but as a common law criminal who was on conditional release.”

The latest new name to surface this week, Najim Laachraoui, turned out to be the bombmaker who made the suicide vests used in the Paris attacks, according to French and Belgian officials. Attackers used an explosive known as Triacetone Triperoxide, or TATP, made from common household chemicals. DNA evidence indicates he died on Tuesday in the suicide attack on the airport, two officials briefed on the investigation told AP.

Fifteen kilos of TATP were found in an apartment linked to the Brussels attackers, along with other explosive material.

The unidentified man seen on security footage wearing a white jacket and black hat at the Brussels airport on Tuesday remains at large, a fugitive link in a chain still being forged.

The Brussels terrorists were preparing an attack on a nuclear power plant and had recorded 12 hours of reconnaissance footage, it has been reported.

The ISIS cell were spying on the Belgian’s nuclear power chief, possibly as part of a kidnap plan to force him to let them into an atomic facility, according to newspaper Derniere Heure.

Hours of film of the home of the Research and Development Director of the Belgian Nuclear Programme were discovered in an apartment in Brussels raided by anti-terrorist police following the attack in Paris.

The footage confounded investigators at first – as it showed the entrance to the director’s home in Flanders, an area outside the capital.

But detectives made the chilling deduction that the group was attempting to gain entry to an atomic facility after watching all 12 hours of footage, which included images of a local bus.

Armed troops were sent to defend French and Belgian nuclear facilities following the discovery and both countries nuclear programmes were put on the highest state of alert.

Reports of the plan first emerged as early as February and was at that time linked back to the cell responsible for the Paris attacks.

The footage was discovered ‘as part of seizures made following the Paris attacks,’ a Belgian prosecutor said, refusing to divulge the individual’s identity ‘for obvious security reasons’.

At the time, Belgium’s federal agency for nuclear control stressed the importance of not revealing the name of the person involved so as ‘not to endanger the enquiry or nuclear security’ or indeed the person involved and their family.

The images were captured by a camera hidden in nearby bushes and recovered by two suspects who left the area in a vehicle with the lights off, Derniere Heure reported.

However, reports in February did not publicly name Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui – the brothers we now know are responsible for the Brussels bombings – as the creators of the footage.

The claims give further credence to the links now established, at least publicly, between the Paris and Brussels bombings.

The bombings in the Belgian capital on Tuesday which killed 31 people are now believed to have been carried out because the authorities were closing in on the fugitive members of the terror cell.

Leading lawmakers identified Belgium as a hotspot for terrorism months ago and are warning that many of the radicalized individuals living there are still able to travel to the United States without first obtaining a visa and undergoing thorough security checks.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon Tuesday afternoon that current flaws in the U.S. visa waiver program – which facilities travel to the United States from partner nations including Belgium – have created a loophole that could permit radicalized individuals to legally enter the United States with minimal background checks.

DeSantis is warning of these flaws on the heels of deadly mass terrorist attack in Brussels on Tuesday that has killed at least 30 and wounded hundreds more.

“The visa waiver reform, this is something we have been perusing and the [Obama] administration has brushed us off at every turn,” DeSantis said, explaining that current policy does not mandate more strenuous checks on individuals identified as coming from terrorist hotspots, such as the small Belgian town of Molenbeek, which has emerged as a principal training site for jihadists.

“It’s the case that if those folks are citizens of Belgium they qualify for the visa waiver program and can hop on a plane and get here,” he added. “Clearly, that is not adequate given what happened.”

The Obama administration “even takes the position it’s safer to allow someone to come in on a visa waiver than make them get one, it’s kind of crazy,” DeSantis said. You’re not going to be able to have intelligence on everyone there because there are so many potential recruits. It’s a clear vulnerability.”

What is worse, DeSantis said, is that the Obama administration has been lax about deporting individuals who overstay their visas, meaning that a radicalized person could disappear in America as they plan a potential attack.

“There’s no enforcement once they get here,” DeSantis said. “Hundreds of thousands of people come over and then overstay” their visas. “You are not going to be removed under current policy under this administration.”

DeSantis and other lawmakers first labeled Belgium as a hotspot for ISIS terrorists in the aftermath of the 2015 attacks in Paris. At least five of the Paris attackers were French nationals, two of whom had been living in Belgium. Another one of the terrorists was a Belgian national.

Citizens from both countries are still able to freely travel to the United States under the visa waiver program, which facilitates travel between the American and a host of foreign countries.

“At least six of the Paris attackers could have attempted to enter the country under this program,” DeSantis said in December, during a congressional hearing on the visa waiver program’s flaws.

Molenbeek in particular “is a hellhole that is filled with Belgian national Islamic radicals who qualify to travel to the U.S. without a visa under the visa waiver program,” DeSantis warned during the hearing.

DeSantis said on Tuesday that following the attack in Paris, he realized that the United States is vulnerable from threats in Europe, in addition to those from Syria and other terror strongholds.

“The problem was not just people coming from Syria,” he explained. “There was a major vulnerability from places in Europe and this Molenbeeck neighborhood was one of the most egregious that I had seen.”

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged on Tuesday that Belgium is still a part of the visa waiver program, and that policy has not shifted in the wake of the attack.

“Though we do not require Belgian citizens to have a visa to travel here for business or tourism purposes, both the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have procedures in place to identify and prevent travel here from Belgium by individuals of suspicion,” Jeh Johnson, DHS secretary, said in in a statement on Tuesday.

“All travelers arriving in the United States are vetted against the U.S. Terrorist Screening Database, regardless of whether they arrive with a visa or an Electronic System for Travel Authorization,” Johnson said. “We continually evaluate whether more screening is necessary, particularly in light of today’s attacks.”

Asked about these screening methods, DeSantis cast doubt on the United States’ ability to thoroughly vet these individuals, explaining that gaps in U.S. intelligence cannot account for the large number of radicalized Europeans.

A student at Columbia University has authored an editorial saying Belgians deserve to be blamed for Tuesday’s Islamic terrorist attack in Brussels because their society is a front of “Islamophobia.”

“Columbia’s vigils and memorial services allow us to mourn victims and condemn terrorism,” writes student Brian Min in the Columbia Daily Spectator. “Moving forward, however, they should condemn not only terrorism, but also the specific Islamophobic attitudes and policies that facilitated the recent attacks.”

Min, a freshman planning to study French as well as women, gender, and sexuality studies, argues that the Brussels attack and other terrorist attacks, are “usually not arbitrary events without any justification – they often are responses to institutionalized hate and oppression.”

“Belgium remains the only other country in the world besides France to have a national ban of full-face veils,” Min says. “Employers too often get away with discriminating against Muslim employees. It comes as no surprise that the municipality Molenbeek – the site of one of the explosions – has an unemployment rate of more than 25 percent where the majority of Muslim youths are denied equal access to the labor and housing market.”

Despite his remarks, Min claims he is not condoning terrorism, because “hate should never be used to fight against hate.”

Min then argues in favor of repurposing vigils and other mourning events for political purposes, saying they should be used to denounce specific policies he disagrees with.

“[I]t is not enough for vigils and memorial services to broadly condemn Islamophobia and other forms of hatred that helped breed terrorist attacks,” he says. “They should also verbally denounce the specific forms of Islamophobia and hatred in relation to targeted nations and their policies of institutionalized discrimination, such as Belgium’s ban on full-face veils. In order to fight against Islamophobia and hate crimes that dramatically increase after major tragedies like the Brussels attacks, we must localize the specific Islamophobic policies and attitudes that helped to facilitate such attacks.”

Despite Min’s argument, there’s ample reason to believe Belgium is not a strong center of Islamophobia. For instance, in 2013 a Belgian man was sent to jail for hate speech for tearing up a Quran near some Muslims, and the country’s hate speech legislation has been interpreted as generally restricting any rhetoric that is overly hurtful towards Muslims.

Teddy bears, tears, candles, cartoons, murals, mosaics, flowers, flags, projections, hashtags, balloons, wreaths, lights, vigils, scarves, and more. These are the best solutions the Western world seems to come up with every few months when we are slammed by another Islamist terrorist attack. We are our own sickness.

Since the world learned of the dozens dead, hundreds injured, and hundreds of thousands affected by Monday’s attack on the NATO and European Union capital, we have seen an outpouring of what is commonly known as “solidarity”.

This word – most commonly associated with hard-left politics, trades union activism, socialism, and poseur indie rock bands – has come to mean very little in reality. In effect, “standing in solidarity” with someone now means that you have observed the situation, changed your Facebook profile picture accordingly, and patted yourself on the back.

And if like dead bodies Facebook profile pictures lost heat, it would be accurate to say that the Tricolores that adorned the social media profiles of many had hardly become cold before we were all changing the colours of the bands on the flags. From blue to black. From white to yellow. The blood red remains.

Because nowadays, teddy bears are the new resolve. They symbolise everything we have become in response to our way of life being threatened, and our people being slaughtered on our streets: inanimate, squishy, and full of crap.

Our security services and our police, hamstrung by political correctness, are just as interested (or more?) in rounding up Twitter “hate speech” offenders than criminal, rapist, or terrorist migrants. Our borders are as porous as our brains. We refuse to realise that there are now literally millions of people amongst us who hate us. Who hate our way of life, and who will, one day, dominate our public life.

But of course, such statements are dismissed as fear-mongering, alarmist, or “out of touch with reality”. As if the data doesn’t exist, or the demographics aren’t shifting quickly enough to notice.

As if vast parts of our towns and cities haven’t become ghettos, or no-go zones, or hubs of child grooming activity, or terrorism.

As if mosques, schools, prisons, and universities aren’t used as recruiting grounds for radicals.

As if the blood of our countrymen hasn’t even been spilled at all.

Instead, we will now think deeply about how we can “reach out” to these populations. How we can “co-exist” and “be tolerant” of one another. As if toleration – which is actually the permittance of what is not actually approved or desired – is a healthy aspiration for a society.

It is as if we model our countries on the practice of bending over and “taking one for the team”, chastising those who fail to “tolerate” the most barbaric traditions of alien cultures. It is everything this cartoon – obviously branded “racist” – suggests.

“But come on, Raheem, not all immigrants, or Muslims, are criminals, or rapists… you’re not!”

Yeah – and look at me. Excoriated daily by Islamists on Twitter. Why? Because I’ve integrated and I love my country. Because I refuse to believe that an Islamic caliphate is the best thing for Britain, or anywhere, quite frankly. Where is my white (or brown) knight? Where are the voices of the moderate Muslim world defending me?

Not that I need protection, or defence, but some people aren’t as hard headed or resolved as I am.

Thusly, the albeit minority evil amongst British Muslims is thriving because good Muslims are doing nothing. At some point, we have to question why. I’m not sure most people are ready for the answers to that one.

So continue to sit there with your head in your hands. Mourning only to make yourself feel better. Missing people you never knew. Exclaiming, as the most immature of minds does: “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Expressing sympathy is no bad thing. But to be truly sympathetic towards someone under attack, one must be chivalrous, gallant, and unafraid.

Watching someone getting raped, and tweeting your solidarity with them is not enough. Human nature and goodness calls upon us to intervene. To assist. To free someone from their torture, and to save them from their demise.

It is not enough to scrawl “no fear” on a post it note, and stick it onto some £3 flowers.

We must be fearless in electing leaders who we feel will best keep us safe. It is one of the few areas of our lives in which we should be able to feel comfortable. We pay our taxes, you keep us safe.

If not, then we must arm ourselves. If our governments refuse to protect us, or even begin to use the tools with which we empower them against us: surveillance, counter-terror laws, detention, then we will need to take the law back into our own hands. We cannot be afraid of doing so. It is where our societies all sprung from.

The defence of ourselves as individuals. The defence of our families, our properties, our means of production, our communities, and our neighbours.

It is why arms sales to individuals has shot up since the migrant crisis in Europe. Many Germans are losing their faith in their elected leaders to protect them. The same applies in Sweden, and in Austria. Some people refuse to take being wiped out laying down. How quaint.

It is also time to start to make serious, wide-reaching demands of our politicians on the subject of immigration and Islamism.

When U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump said what he said about a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, the tolerance lobby went into overdrive: full condemnations across the board from politicians – including presidents and prime ministers, across the media sphere, and you will recall the House of Commons debating a petition to ban the man from the country.

Now even the most politically correct of Hollywood luvvies is asking: is he really that wrong on this?

Because Mr. Trump has thought in a cycle longer than his potential presidency: what does the Western world look like in 20, 30, 50 years? What kind of societies do we leave to our children?

Do we leave cities with soldiers on patrol. With “peace” signs scrawled onto bomb-struck buildings? Or do we leave them safe places, with real promise for the future. Like our parents, or at least our parents’ parents, left us.

In order to confront this question, we have to get to the root cause of the problem. There is too much immigration, or at least, not enough hand-picked immigration, into the Western world today.

People of my age had no choice that our post-war leaders felt the heavy hand of post-colonial guilt on their shoulders, and decided to open up our countries, and flood us with “diversity”.

But we do have a choice to not make the same mistakes again. And we have a duty to correct the ones that were made.

And yes, that does mean exactly what you think it means. It means ending mass migration. It means smashing apart ghettos and no go zones. It means repealing laws that allow for Sharia councils. It means asserting what it means to be British, or European, or American, without fearing a backlash from the political left, or the media classes who scarcely see a face my colour let alone darker.

Let them riot. Let them cry.

I would far rather be subjected to ceaseless “direct action” by the scourges of my own society than import others.

At least if my fellow countrymen are deplorable, I won’t get called a racist for pointing it out.

So put down the teddy bears, burst the balloons, and let’s start demanding again that our countries are safe and civilised. And if we can’t find people who’ll make that happen for us… let’s do it ourselves.

The campaign of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is speaking out to defend American war veteran and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council President Chris Crane. Over the weekend, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) demeaned Crane, who’s critical of Sen. Rubio’s involvement in the Gang of Eight bill.

“This courageous ICE officer – a man that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has called ‘an American hero’… has served his country in so many different capacities: in the Marine’s uniform, as an ICE officer, [and] as a representative for all of America’s ICE officers,” said Donald Trump’s Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller on Breitbart News Sunday.

Rubio has repeatedly made clear “where his priorities are” on immigration, Miller said – explaining that there are now three lanes dividing the GOP Presidential field: the Governor’s lane, occupied by John Kasich; the frontrunner’s lane, occupied by Donald Trump; and the “amnesty lane,” which is occupied “solely and exclusively” by Sen. Rubio.

Prior to joining the Trump campaign, Miller served as Jeff Sessions’ communications director.

On Friday, Breitbart News published an exclusive interview with Chris Crane, an ICE officer of 13 years and a U.S. Marine, in which Crane said Sen. Rubio treated law enforcement “like absolute trash” during his push to pass his 2013 amnesty bill. On Saturday, Rubio appeared on Fox News and implicitly denounced Crane and his service to the country. “He’s not an ICE official, he’s head of a union,” Rubio said angrily..

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Miller, who worked for Sen. Sessions as Rubio sought to push the Gang of Eight amnesty bill through the Senate, explained that: “Chris Crane was a central figure in stopping the Gang of Eight immigration bill from becoming law. He did that in his capacity as the ICE Council President for America’s nearly 6,000 ICE officers and personnel. What that means is that the 6,000 ICE officers and personnel cast a ballot to pick one from among their own ranks to represent them nation-wide… He [Crane] was a central figure in exposing the Gang of Eight bill and stopping it.”.

Chris Crane made specific, material claims [about Sen. Rubio’s amnesty bill]. So Rubio can either say one of two things on substance. He can either say: (1) ‘No, Chris Crane is wrong the bill is fabulous, it should have passed exactly as is.’ Or (2) [Rubio could say,] ‘He’s right we should have listened to him.’ Instead he [Rubio] went for option three, which is to attack the integrity and decency and morality not just… [of] Chris Crane – who again Sen. Sessions has called ‘an American hero’ – but to attack, by extension, all of the ICE officers for whom he speaks.

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Miller detailed how Crane has proven himself “over and over” again to be “a man of courage and honor.” Providing listeners with a better understanding of the American veteran Sen. Rubio chose to demean on national television, Miller said:.

I want to explain just a little bit more about why Chris Crane is such an exceptional person. Consider the situation he finds himself in: he represents America’s ICE officers, who are in a political environment in this Homeland Security Department under Obama where they are ordered every day to violate their oath; where they face unceasing pressure from the political chain of command to release criminal aliens and violent people back on the streets and have nothing they can do… And Chris Crane in 2012 spoke out, when precious few did, about President Obama’s first executive amnesty. And he and nine other ICE officers courageously filed a lawsuit to stop President Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty. Think about the courage that takes about how it affects your future career, in terms of how it affects possible political reprisal. Again, Chris Crane has proven over and over that he is a man of courage and honor and decency. And for Marco Rubio to lump him in this group of conspiracy theorists, I just find inexplicable… Historically, I don’t think attacking law enforcement has been a path to the Republican nomination.

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Miller confirmed Crane’s account of how Sen. Rubio oversaw as Crane was ejected from the Gang of Eight’s press conference for trying to ask a question on behalf of the nation’s law enforcement. Miller explained that this was “a moment in which the character of Marco Rubio was revealed”:.

I was there at the press conference, as were others… where Marco Rubio allowed Chris Crane to be ejected for asking a question at the press conference… That’s one of those moments when the measure of a man is determined… All of us in our own lives have a moment when we’re tested – where the world figures out who we are and what we are really made of… That was a moment in which the character of Marco Rubio was revealed. He was standing on the stage [next to] Chuck Schumer. This courageous ICE officer – a man that Sen. Jeff Sessions has called ‘an American hero’ – who has served his country in so many different capacities: in the Marine’s uniform, as an ICE officer, [and] as a representative for all of America’s ICE officers. He tried to ask a question, Marco Rubio locked eyes with him. And when they came to forcibly remove that ICE officer from the press conference, Rubio had a chance – a moment to stand up and do the right thing – and he didn’t do it. And now having had that fact and many other exposed, Rubio is attacking the integrity of a United States Marine and an ICE officer, who everyday keeps this nation safe. And I hope that Sen. Rubio issues an apology to Chris Crane and to Breitbart News.

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Rubio’s treatment of law enforcement and his implicit denunciation of Crane “really has become one of the central issues of the 2016 race,” Miller said.

Miller explained that Rubio’s attack of Crane seems to suggest that Rubio wishes the Gang of Eight bill had passed:.

Here’s an interesting paradox for everybody. Just think about this for a second… Rubio’s tone suggests that he’s mad at Chris Crane. Ok, well Chris Crane helped stop the Gang of Eight bill. But is Rubio therefore saying that he wishes Crane hadn’t stopped the bill, so it could have become law? That’s the implication, right? What he’s saying by implication is: ‘We would have been better off as a country had Chris Crane not spoken out because then obviously it would have been much easier to pass the Gang of Eight bill.’ So he’s sort of caught in a little paradox here because the more he attacks Chris Crane for speaking out, the more he’s saying that he would really have liked to have happened is for the Gang of Eight bill to pass and become law.

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When asked if there was anything Sen. Rubio has done to indicate that he now takes law enforcement seriously, Miller gave a review of Rubio’s record:.

The Gang of Eight bill had the following provisions in it: it legalized sex offenders, it legalized gang members, it legalized criminal convicts, it legalized child predators, it legalized people with multiple criminal convictions.

Chris Crane and other ICE officers asked for all those provisions to be removed. Now, again, Rubio had all of the leverage. Rubio could have gone to Chuck Schumer at any point in time, and say to him, “Hey Mr. Schumer, I can’t support this bill unless we change our minds on this whole amnesty for sex offenders thing. Maybe let’s not give amnesty to sex offenders. I can’t support it unless we make sure that no sex offender in the United States can get amnesty…’ Did he do that? No, he didn’t. And he had all the leverage in the world, if he wanted to. By the way, let’s be real here, how much leverage do you need to tell someone not to give amnesty to illegal alien sex offenders? That doesn’t seem like that should be a thing where you really have to think very hard about it.

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Miller explained that even after Rubio’s amnesty bill failed, Rubio has still favored special interests over law enforcement..

In 2015, Rubio introduced another immigration bill. So he had a chance to give it a second go. He introduced another immigration bill in 2015. And so having wronged Chris Crane, having wronged law enforcement, he had a chance – if he wanted to to make amends – [to] introduce a bill, sit down with Chris Crane that would have helped America’s ICE officers. But what bill did Sen. Rubio introduce in 2015 [instead]? It was legislation to help large corporations replace American workers with foreign guest workers. Was there any security in the bill? No. Any new screening tools? No. Any new ICE resources? No. Just a massive uncapped increase in the number of foreign nationals who could be employed in the United States in place of U.S. workers. So again that shows where his priorities are.

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Miller concluded by noting that, at this point in the presidential race, the GOP field can be viewed in terms of three lanes:.

Sen. Rubio is the most pro-amnesty candidate in the race, so he inherits completely and solely and exclusively the mantel of the official amnesty candidate. That is his niche. So you have the Governor’s lane with John Kasich; you have the front-runner [lane] with Donald Trump; and then you have the amnesty lane with Marco Rubio. That’s really a good way of thinking about which candidates are fighting for which votes.

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Miller explained that “Sen. Rubio has [also] been an enthusiastic backer of Obama’s sovereignty-crushing trade agenda. Only 11 percent of GOP voters think these trade agreements raise wages. And only seven percent of GOP voters want more foreign workers, so that means that… the two pillars of Sen. Rubio’s agenda: Obamatrade and Obama-immigration – at most – appeal to 7 and 11 percent of the Republican electorate at the high end.”

Thus, in what Senator Sessions has labeled as the two central issue of 2016 – issues which in helped launch the current voter revolt – Rubio is the candidate who firmly represents the minority view embraced by the GOP’s donor base, but rejected by its voters.

As conservative icon, Phyllis Schlafly explained, “Senator Rubio is not Main Street’s Obama, he is Wall Street’s Obama: President Obama was a hardcore leftist running as centrist; Senator Rubio is a Wall Street globalist running as a tea party conservative… Rubio is the candidate of open borders, Obamatrade and mass immigration, making one last attempt to pull off one big con.”